[hibernate-dev] Connection release mode and Session.connection() deprecation

[Steve Ebersole]

Was thinking some more today about the deprecation of Session.connection()

The reason we deprecated it was that we need a way to scope access to 
the Connection because Session may have to release it due to "release 
mode".  The back story here is that we added "connection release mode" 
as a way to fix an earlier problem using Hibernate in certain 
container-managed-transaction scenarios involving nested bean calls 
where they both used the same Session but the nested bean forced the 
session to obtain a Connection first.  Hibernate tries to delay 
obtaining the JDBC Connection until needed.  However, in the stated 
scenario that leads to a situation where the container managing the 
transaction sees a Connection "leaking" from the nested bean call since 
it was the one that forced the Connection to be obtained from the 
DataSource.  The solution to this back then was to have Hibernate 
release the Connection whenever it was done using it for the moment in 
JTA cases.  In retrospect, I think a much cleaner solution to the above 
situation is to force the Session to obtain the Connection up front 
rather than this obtain/release as-needed cycle.

So as one more attempt to save Session.connection() from going away, I 
wanted to propose that we drop the notion of "release mode" in favor of 
simply saying whether or not to aggressively acquire the Connection when 
the Session starts.  Then all of the concerns that made deprecating and 
planning on removing  Session.connection() are no longer there.

WDYT?


-- 
steve at hibernate.org
http://hibernate.org